Guillermo Del Toro - The Night Eternal

Eph was already running toward him. He got in front of Zack, between him and the Born, one arm over his searing chest, the other holding a sword.

Zack stared at his father before him. He did not lower his blade.

Eph lowered his. He wanted Zack to take a chop at him. It would have made what he had to do that much easier.

The boy trembled. Maybe he was fighting himself inside, resisting what the Master was telling him to do.

Eph reached for his wrists and pulled Setrakian’s sword out of his hands. “Okay,” said Eph. “It’s okay.”

Mr. Quinlan overpowered the Master. Eph could not hear what their minds were saying to one another; he only knew that the roar in his own head was deafening. Mr. Quinlan grabbed the neck of the Master and sank his fingers into it, piercing its flesh, trying to shatter it.

Father.

And then the Master shot out its stinger—and like a piston, it embedded itself in the Born’s neck. Such was its force that it shattered the vertebrae. Blood worms invaded Mr. Quinlan’s immaculate body, coursing under his pale skin for the very first—and very last—time.

Eph saw the lights and heard the helicopter rotors approaching the island. They had found them. The spotlights searched the blighted land. It was now or never.

Eph ran as fast as his punctured lungs would allow, the barrel-shaped device shaking in his view. He was just a few yards out when a howl came up and a blow caught him on the back of the head.

Both swords slipped from his hands. Eph felt something gripping the side of his chest, the pain excruciating. He clawed at the soft dirt, seeing Setrakian’s sword blade glowing silver-white. He’d just grasped the wolf’s-head handle when the Master hoisted him into the air, spinning him.

The Master’s arms, face, and neck were cut and bleeding white. The creature could of course heal itself but had had no chance to yet. Eph slashed at the Master’s neck with the old man’s silver, but the creature caught Eph’s sword arm, stopping the blow. The pain in Eph’s chest was too great, and the Master’s strength was tremendous. It forced Eph’s hand back, pointing Setrakian’s sword at Eph’s own throat.

A helicopter spotlight hit them. In the haze, Eph looked down into the Master’s glowing, scratched-open face. He saw the blood worms rippling beneath its skin, invigorated by the nearness of human blood and the anticipation of the kill. The thrumming roared in Eph’s head, achieving a voice, its tenor rising to almost a nearly angelic level.

I have a new body ready and waiting. The next time anyone looks at your son’s face—they will be looking at me.

The worms bubbled beneath the flesh of its face, as though in ecstasy.

Good-bye, Goodweather.

But Eph eased his resistance against the Master’s grip just before the Master could finish him off. Eph pricked his own throat, opening a vein. He saw his own red blood spurt out, spraying right into the Master’s face—making the blood worms crazy.

They sprang from the Master’s open wounds. They crawled up from the slices in its arms and the hole in its chest, trying to get at the blood.

The Master groaned and shook, hurling Eph away as it brought its own hands to its face.

Eph landed hard. He twisted, needing all his strength to turn back.

Within the column of helicopter light, the Master stumbled backward, trying to stop its own parasitic worms from feasting on the human blood coating its face, obstructing its vision.

Eph watched all of this through a daze, everything slowed down. Then a thump in the ground at his side brought him back to speed.

The snipers. Another spotlight lit him up, red laser sights dancing on his chest and head… and the nuke, just a few feet away.

Eph dragged himself through the dirt, scratching toward the device as rounds pelted the ground around him. He reached it, pulling himself up on it in order to reach the detonator.

He got it in his hand and found the button, then risked one look back at Zack.

The boy stood near where the Born lay. A few of the blood parasites had reached him, and Eph saw Zack struggling to brush them off… then watched as they burrowed in under his forearm and neck.

Mr. Quinlan’s body arose, a new look in his eyes—a new will. That of the Master, who understood the dark side of human nature completely, but not love.

“ This is love, ” said Eph. “ God, it hurts—but this is love…”

And he, who had been late to most everything in his life, was on time for this, the most important appointment he ever had. He pushed the switch.

And nothing happened. For one agonizing moment, the island was an oasis of stillness to Eph, though the helicopters were hovering overhead.

Eph saw Mr. Quinlan coming at him, one final lunge of the Master’s will.

Then two punches to his chest. Eph was down on the ground, looking at his wounds. Seeing the bloody holes there, just to the right of his heart. His blood seeping into the ground.

Eph looked past Mr. Quinlan at Zack, his face glowing in the helicopter light. His will still present, still not overcome. He saw Zack’s eyes— his son, even now, his son —he still had the most beautiful eyes…

Eph smiled.

And then the miracle happened.

It was the gentlest of things: no earthquake, no hurricane, no parting of the seas. The sky cleared for a moment and a brilliant column of pure, sterilizing light a million times more powerful than any helicopter spotlight poured down. The dark cloud cover opened and cleansing light emerged.

The Born, now infected by the Master’s blood, hissed and writhed in the brilliant light. Smoke and vapor surged from its body as the Born screamed like a lobster being boiled.

None of this shook Eph’s gaze from the eyes of his son. And as Zack saw his father smile at him there—in the powerful light of glorious day—he recognized him for all that he was, recognized him as—

“ Dad— ” Zack said softly.

And then the nuclear device detonated. Everything around the flashpoint evaporated—bodies, sand, vegetation, helicopters—all gone.

Purged.

From a beach well down the river, close to Lake Ontario, Nora watched this only for a moment. Then Fet pulled her around a rocky outcropping, both of them dropping into a ball on the sand.

The shock wave made the old abandoned fort near them shudder, shaking dust and stone fragments from the walls. Nora was certain the entire structure would collapse into the river. Her ears popped and the water around them heaved in a great gush—and even with her eyes tightly closed and her arms over her head, she still saw bright light.

Rain blew sideways, the ground emitted a howl of pain… and then the light faded, the stone fort settled without collapsing, and everything became quiet and still.

Later, she would realize that she and Fet had been rendered temporarily deaf by the blast, but for the moment the silence was profound and spiritual. Fet uncurled himself from shielding Nora, and together they ventured back out around the rock barrier as the water receded from the beach.

What she saw—the larger miracle in the sky—she did not fully understand until later.

Gabriel, the first archangel—an entity of light so bright that it made the sun and the atomic glow pale—came spiraling down around the shaft of light on glowing silver wings.

Michael, the murdered one, tucked his wings and bolted straight down, leveling out about a mile above the island, gliding down the rest of the way.

Then, rising as though out of the earth itself, came Ozryel, together again, resurrected from the collective ashes. Rock and dirt fell from its great wings as it ascended. A spirit again, flesh no more.